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£9.375bn Olympic bill
At last, the bad news. After months of speculation, the government has announced that London 2012 will cost more than four times the original budget of £2bn-plus.
So, what was hailed as the biggest opportunity for our sport, parks and leisure industry will now be labelled by some commentators and politicians as a disaster. The so called “Montreal factor” (that the Canadian city is still paying for its Olympic Games, years later) will be back in “mediaspeak”.
What’s the truth? How must we professionals in this young, fast growing, industry, react?
We’re all positive people at ISPAL. It is vital that the industry studies the breakdown of the 2012 budget figures. But we will find that, as with Montreal, and more recently in Barcelona, that the major part of the costs is not for the actual Games at all - but for urban regeneration, in London.
London 2012 is planned as an Olympic Games which will deliver lasting infrastructure benefits to London and its people – especially in the East End. So the major part of this huge £9bn spend is dedicated to a rebuilding programme - including site clearance, transport links, housing, infrastructure, and so on.
We must react by making sure the debate is so informed; and we must fight our case for sports, parks and leisure provision and programmes.
There’s no doubt there will be an ongoing debate, much of it about public spending. There will be attempted raids on parts of our industry’s spend, around the UK, to help meet the 2012 bill. Programmes to aid participation, to water the grass roots, will face cuts, unless we get our case and our act together.
ISPAL will be monitoring developments closely; do mail us at [email protected] with your views, comments, information.
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